Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 20/08/2004 00:48, MarianneLuban AT aol.com wrote:

> ...
> Why would any copiers throw in so many anachronisms into a text they 
> considered "holy"? ...


Perhaps they didn't consider it quite so holy, in earlier times. You are 
the one throwing in an anachronism here.

> ...  And why is it necessary for Moses to have written "any" of the Torah?
I didn't say it was necessary, only that your arguments that it is 
impossible are not secure.

> > By the way, how do we know that Manetho was not taken in by the kinds of
> > forged stelae which you mentioned?
>
>
>
> They are rarities.  I know of only the two I mentioned.  While these 
> texts are pseudographic, there is really nothing in them to be "taken 
> in" by.  The Famine Stela mention "seven lean years" in Egypt during 
> the time of Djoser.  Manetho never mentioned them--but maybe the Bible 
> does. ...


Well, maybe. But don't go down the route of saying that Genesis is 
copied from the forgery. It could be the other way round, or there could 
just have been a general tradition of a seven year famine which found 
its way into both; or the resemblance may be accidental. It would anyway 
stretch every chronology to put Joseph in the time of Djoser, which 
would put Abraham back in the 1st dynasty.

> ... Seven low Niles in a row would have been a rare happening in 
> Egypt.  The Bekhten Stela (also called the Bentresh Stela) refers to a 
> marriage between Ramesses II and a daughter of a king of a place 
> called "Bekhten", which some feel is Afghanistan.  It records that 
> another daughter of this same foreign king was possessed by a demon 
> and required an Egyptian physician to either heal her or act as an 
> exorcist.  Manetho doesn't mention this, either.  Yet Hecataeus of 
> Abdera was told by priests of the Ramesseum (the mortuary temple of 
> Ram. II) that the pharaoh had fought in far-flung locations, so there 
> was a legend there that had persisted.


He is known to have fought at Kadesh on the Orontes, which is a long way 
from Luxor.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/